


Swingset

by mamey2422



Series: Swingset [1]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-28 04:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamey2422/pseuds/mamey2422
Summary: Beth and Rio reunite post 2x10 on a swingset. Super quick one-shot for Carol/@jonahsimmms  - inspired by her CC and Twitter.





	Swingset

The park is mostly empty when Rio finds Beth on the swingset. The fall air is cool and comfortable but crisp enough that Beth is bundled in a scarf and he’s in a beanie. Marcus sprints off to find Emma at the jungle gym, two fast friends. As for he and Beth, well, she probably had the right idea by not trying to label them.

Beth is on a swing, a loose grip on the chains, one toe on the ground barely swaying back and forth. Her hair falls forward, covering her face, but he can see she’s lost in thought somewhere faraway.

Rio sits on the swing next to her, careful to not move too much. To keep the distance Beth wanted.

He wasn’t surprised to get a text from her. He knew it would happen. Frustration had filled his veins after she told him she was done. But it was temporary. He told Beth he knew her. And he did. Does. Being a boss bitch was who she was now, was part of her now. She was stubborn but so was he. And he was patient.

Beth looks at him hesitantly, trying to gauge his mood through his devilish poker face.

“I’m off your blocked list?” he asks with a smirk, amusement in his tone.

He watches Marcus straight ahead, fearlessly climbing and jumping over the tunnels and bars. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Beth is taking her time to say something.

“Thank you.” The words feel enormously inadequate to her. His warning about the FBI was more than a favor, more than a courtesy. How do you thank someone for saving your life? Silence falls between them, uncertainty ping pongs in the air. Beth clears her throat before continuing.

“Why?” Streaks of guilt tinge her weighty question. Rio tangled in her sheets was supposed to her last beautifully tortured memory of him. But instead, there he was at the park, calm, cool and collected despite the urgency of his news. The pull of his voice, body, of everything he offered overwhelmed her, tempted her. Even in those brief moments on the bench, he looked at her in the way only he could - as if he could see through her.

Rio starts to sway his swing the slightest bit, side to side instead of back and forth.

“We’re partners,” he says. He wants to say more, but that tingling pull in his chest is back. He’d felt it before with her, only with her. That same pull that made him want to show her what tomorrow, next month, next year, eternity could be like if she stayed by his side. Maybe life didn’t have to be lonely at the top.

“I said I was done.” 

Rio starts to move his swing in a lazy circle.

“I don’t believe you.” He answers so certainly, so clearly that it hooks into Beth’s chest, stuns her into silence.

“Heard you were pretty impressive with the feds,” Rio says with a laugh. Of course she was. He shifts his body, putting more weight behind the arch of his swing, rocking it closer to her. “Offered them a government discount and everything.”

Beth couldn’t fight the smile tugging at her lips. The look on Agent Turner’s face was priceless as she walked out of the bathroom, called him James. She kept her cool, fueled by the thrill. Rio made her that way. He’d pulled out all the best parts of her, parts of her she didn’t even know existed.

“How do you even know that?”

“I have my ways. You know that.”

Rio gives a good push off his leg so there’s barely any distance between their swings now, the seats gently touching, the back of their hands brushing as they come together then move apart. All he wants to do is touch her, talk to her. Rio lingers on the last time he touched her, how Beth let herself go with him.

Beth’s breathe catches. These are the moments that turn her upside down. It’s not the FBI – that feels fun. It’s not a gun to her head – that’s become normal now. It’s these moments. When Rio is all she sees, hears, smells. When he dissolves everything else around her – especially the reason to stay away.

Shadows start to play over them as dusk moves in. Rio roams his eyes over her, full on and directly. No more side glances, backward looks.

When her eyes lock on his, he asks, “So you’re all good then?” Somewhere Agent Turner and his minions are doing their best to put her in jail. And Beth doesn’t care. Because Rio is next to her.

“Yes,” she says with a faint smile, her voice sliding into that relaxed tone she had only started using around him right before she decided she was done.

He sees that spark in her eyes. That same spark when she proposed cleaning cash at Superstore, when she asked him for bigger jobs. He sees the flash of desire she tries to keep hidden from him. That same flash when she pointed a gun at him, when she walked toward him in her bedroom with mismatched socks.

He sees her. Sees it all. And he hears what she doesn’t say. _I want back in_.


End file.
